Drifting
by ncfan
Summary: SUNA. The old poet says 'Fear death by water.' In the parched lands, it is considered more practical to fear death by sand.


Hello there! In comparison for the last multi-chapter fic I wrote for _Naruto_, _Ruler of the Sands_, this probably won't be as long. I've got more chapters in the outline for this one than I did for that, but the chapters are going to be just as long as they need to be, no longer, and will probably vary in length. It could end up being as long as _Ruler of the Sands_, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. I hope you'll enjoy it, nonetheless.

I own nothing.

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_Intravenous_

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The old poet, or one of the many old poets, says 'Fear death by water*.' In the parched lands, it is considered more practical to fear death by sand.

In Kaze no Kuni, 'death by sand' is a saying with a dual meaning. There is, of course, the obvious outer meaning of the phrase—a death out in the desert, away from civilization, away from anyone who could help you. That, perhaps, ties in to the deeper meaning of the phrase.

On a deeper level, the phrase 'death by sand' refers to death by anonymity. It is the death resulting by obscurity and invisibility. This is the death before death: you have been swallowed whole, by duty, or by stigma, by madness, by addiction or disease, by whatever reason, you have been swallowed whole, and your skin's gone see-through. You're invisible; no one can see you anymore, can't and won't. When you die no one notices and even fewer people care.

Of course, 'death by water' has a double-meaning too. It is the untimely death, the death no one saw coming. In Kaze, most people will say: "Better death by water than death by sand. At least someone will remember to bury your bones or burn them."

For the Sunagakure ANBU agent, death by sand seems inevitable, and Yashamaru is no one to think otherwise. Any other nineteen-year-old young man (_even if he doesn't feel young_) might hope for death by sun (a glorious death), but he knows now, deep in his bones, that it is the sand for him. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, not this year or decade—perhaps he will live to see retirement and a great old age—but it will happen, eventually. Obscurity is in his veins, his blood. With his training, his cultivated masks and faces, how can it be any other way?

-0-0-0-

"Yaksha?"

Kawa in January is cold and wet. It's too far south for snow, and this has been an unseasonably warm winter anyways—Yashamaru winces to remember the stiff, dry heat of Suna when last he was there, without the normal coolness of winter and without even a coastal breeze to break the doldrums. Near the estuaries on the western coast of the country there rises the omnipresent, faintly putrid odor of commingled brine, fish, brackish water and rotting plants, a smell that Yashamaru doubts he will ever grow accustomed to. The food here is faintly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, made with different spices, to different tastes, slightly off, an air of wrongness permeating each bite. And the smell of the estuaries…

The smell of the estuaries reminds Yashamaru of the smell of a sickroom in Suna, reminding him why he needs terribly to get home. For all the time he has been here, in Kawa no Kuni on assignment, he's wanted to go home—the captain of his squad has noticed, has commented on his unusually distracted performance—and care for his sister. He wakes up at night and for a long moment thinks that he's back in his house in Sunagakure and that he needs to get up and go to the next room to check on Karura, wasting away in a dark room while a child with a demon bound fast to its fate grows in her womb and saps her strength.

_No, that's not right. She was transferred to the hospital before you left. Kazekage-sama took one look at her and insisted on it. At least the man responsible for her condition has caring enough left in his heart to insist on his wife being in the care of more than just one medic._

_But not enough caring to save her life._

It's strange, so very strange. Since they were little, it's always been Karura who's taken care of Yashamaru, not the other way around. She's five years his senior, and until her health began to decline was more than competent to take care of herself. That's the image of his sister that Yashamaru has in his head: competent, beautiful and brave, inclined to sharpness when angry and willing to let disputes lie with a sufficiently contrite apology. Not the strange, enervated creature given to morbid thoughts and morbid words, lying on a bed in a darkened room with all the shutters closed, drawing in thick, shuddering breaths. She's not due until May, and to look at her you could barely tell that she was pregnant, but she's sickened, she's sickening, dying (no, he doesn't want to admit that, but she's been declining for months and the air of death about her is so palpable that Yashamaru can _smell _it), and he needs to go home.

"Yaksha!"

Yashamaru jumps slightly to hear his code-name spoken aloud and doesn't quite meet the gaze of his impatiently frowning captain; to do so would be rude. "My apologies, Shiva-taicho. What is it you were saying?"

Shiva's eyes narrow in displeasure. "I'm _saying _that Fujitsubo needs you to take a look at her before we leave. Possibly Haddu as well."

"He's alright, taicho!" Anat informs him. "He's got a nasty bump on the head, but no concussion, as far as I can tell."

Shiva nods. "Fine. Just Fujitsubo, then. Get on it; we need her well enough to travel."

Their mission, given to them just two days after the Kazekage signed the treaty ending the five-year war with Hi no Kuni, was to track down and eliminate deserters believed to reside in a seaside town of Kawa no Kuni. They could not be allowed to live; who knew what sort of information they could give to the other nations? There were five of them in a group, nearly a match in numbers for the six-man plainclothes ANBU squad, and it took a while and a surprising amount of effort to kill them all. _Either the deserters were more skilled than their profiles suggested, or we have simply grown careless._

Fujitsubo is lying on her back on the wiry sea grass, her head in her younger sister Murasaki's lap—well, Yashamaru _thinks _they're sisters; they look very much alike and they're often put on missions together. Wisps of Fujitsubo's short black hair fall over her pinched, strained face; her injured leg sticks out as straight as she can manage it, the deep laceration on her calf oozing sluggish blood on to the ground. In the wan pre-dawn light, the blood looks black.

He takes out a bottle of antiseptic (you always need to clean a wound before applying healing chakra) and cleans the wound; Fujitsubo sucks in a deep breath and fiddles with her hand-length tessen in an attempt to distract away from the pain. Yashamaru looks at the fan and feels a sharp pang.

_Draw chakra to your hands._

The process of summoning and plying healing chakra is engrossing enough to distract away from his worries. Emerald green chakra springs to Yashamaru's palms. He and Fujitsubo and Murasaki behind her are bathed in ghostly green light, and he focuses his attention on the task at hand. _Press the chakra to the wound. Concentrate on speeding up cell division. Not too fast, not too much; she'll have worse problems than this gash to contend with if you encourage too much cell division. Watch the wound. Watch the bleeding stop. Watch the flesh knit back together. Watch the scab form, harden, fall off._

_That's it._

Yashamaru ceases the chakra flow and sets his hands down on his knees. "How do you feel now, Fujitsubo-san?" he asks politely, none of the tension he feels bleeding through into his voice.

Fujitsubo whispers thanks to her sister, and stands, testing her formerly-injured leg gingerly. After a moment, she nods and smiles faintly, smoothing her sleek (if rather sweaty) hair back down. "I think I'll be okay. Thank you, Yaksha."

The six of them begin the journey back to Sunagakure, the dawn stretching its limbs at their backs. Yashamaru supposes Shiva is probably gathering all the details for the report he's going to have to write in his head, but Yashamaru is mostly concerned about getting back to his sister, and doing his best to look after her and the child she carries, before what seems like the inevitable happens.

Several miles down the road, Yashamaru remembers that he'd promised Temari and Kankuro that he would find some small souvenirs for them in town. They won't understand, but he'll offer them apologies anyways.

* * *

**End Note**:

* T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_, 'The Burial of the Dead', line 55.


End file.
